This week is the second half of the double-page spread. A bit of trivia: most of these images represent scenes that fall roughly between the end of Chapter 3 and the beginning of Chapter 4, stuff I included in the old version of the story but skipped over in the webcomic in the interest of moving things along. The last image is from a few pages into Chapter Four, which you probably recognize by now because I’ve linked to it rather often recently.

One day I’ll have that old version of the story scanned in for a digital download, but in the meantime if you’re interested you can get print copies in the Galaxion store.

And I have some great news for Lois McMaster Bujold fans to pass along! You know there’s a new Vorkosigan book coming in November, right? Well, if you don’t want to wait that long you can now buy an e-copy of Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) straight from Baen books! Usually ARCs, which are uncorrected proofs and may contain spelling errors, are only distributed to people in the book trade, but now Baen is making them more widely available. This is not some kind of pirated copy– the author gets royalties for every sale. DRM-free, and available for reading on a number of different platforms (including straight off your computer). What a brilliant idea! I already bought one and devoured it, because I’m just that much of a fan.

Discussion (23) ¬

Hhhm. I don’t remember this scene being in the original print version at all, but I’ve long since lost the original to moves and silverfish. But perhaps I misunderstood – I did notice different scenes were emphasized, added or dropped between the two versions. I really like the double-page spread – it definitely puts both the Miesti and Aria’s viewpoints in context. I wonder if Aria and uuiath are communicating directly at this point? Guess we’ll find out later.

It seems unnecessary to fight back. What’s needed is better understanding. If you mean she needs to ‘fight’ against whatever may be impeding communication, then I fully agree.

This comic is all sorts of shades of grey, and neither the Miesti or the Orehu should be ‘defeated’. These looks into the Miesti side of things have made that quite clear. The Orehu seem to have a far more black-and-white look at their situation, in fact. The Miesti still seem to have some lessons to learn about humans, though, especially that ‘yssala’, who kept insisting they use force. In particular, they may not grasp how much humans value their independence. We will probably see, in time.

Getting “used” as the “tool” at hand sounds like slavery to me. However much one might want to pretty it up. Being given a choice in the symbiosis is one thing. Having it forced on you….. them’s fighting words.

This is the problem with the idea of actually, truly alien aliens. What if their idea of communication isn’t the same as ours? Different concepts? Different moralities completely unrelated to our human-accepted polarities of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, ‘order’ and ‘chaos’ …

Well, the Miesti stung and attempted to control Patty without so much as a ‘please’ Even if the Miesti see humans as some sort of animal, well, its like a human coming up next to a bear and giving it a low taser shot. The bear would squash the human for it.

Or they could’ve had the infected humans contact the other team. Anyway, even if they were forced to sting her it’s not her fault for reflexively swatting it, it would just mean they didn’t have proper alternatives.

Sooooo envious! I have met a lot of authors in my time and had books signed, but I have yet to meet LMB. Nor have I picked up anything pre-signed by her, although I suppose that would be easier to do. One day…

This fascination with Vorkosigan novels seems to be a US/Canada thing. They’re nothing like as popular over here in the UK. They just don’t seem to appeal to people, maybe it’s a cultural thing that we don’t yearn for the return of a frontier since it’s so many centuries since we had one. Or maybe the books are written too much from a US cultural viewpoint?

That’s interesting because, within the novels, I see Beta Colony or Jackson’s Whole as representing the American polity much more than Barrayar (a monarchy). They are not nearly so much about the return of a frontier as they are science fiction romances (not all of them, but many). I’d say that shows like Star Trek or Firefly are much more about the return of a frontier (or books like Resnick’s Santiago). Are they much less popular in the UK?

I was at an SF and role playing convention in Cambridge, UK (where I live) last year and there was a panel item about the Vorkosigan Saga. It was quite clear from what many people said in that panel that Vorkosigan is a lot more popular in the US than the UK. Most of the audience had turned up to find out what Vorkosigan was or a bit more about it, since most had either not heard of it at all (myself included) or if they had heard of it they hadn’t read any of the books. And that’s at an SF convention.

Pretty amazing when one considers that no one has won more Hugo Awards for best novel than Lois McMaster Bujold (she’s tied with Robert Heinlein). All in all, the Vorkosigan series has won 4 Hugo Awards, 2 Nebula Awards and 2 Locus Awards. While the Nebula Award may be American in focus (given out by the SFWA, after all) and the Locus Award is given by a California-based magazine, I’m pretty sure the Hugo is worldwide in scope.